Last updated: 8 October 2026. Every screenshot below was recorded on 8 October 2026 on an IQ Option Practice account registered in Brazil, on EUR/USD 5-minute candles; the Chart analysis picture in Step 1 was recorded on 5 October 2026. We placed no real-money trade. The settings come from the platform’s dialog and the calculation from the published source code of the platform’s built-in indicators (Quadcode’s script library). The tested box shows what two readings, the 50 line and the 35 and 65 levels, did on EUR/USD 5-minute candles recorded between 29 September and 5 October 2026; it says nothing about what will happen next.
The Psychological Line (PSY) counts how many of the last 28 candles closed higher than the candle before, and plots that share as a percentage from 0 to 100. On IQ Option it opens in its own panel under the price chart as one line around a line at 50, filled green above 50 and red below it. Above 50 more candles closed up than down, below 50 more closed down. The usual reading buys when the line moves above 50, sells below it, and calls the asset oversold under 35 and overbought over 65. On 5-minute EUR/USD candles the line was between 14% and 75% and crossed 50 only 66 times in 1,280 candles, about once every 19 candles.
Quick answer
- What it plots: one line in a panel under the price chart, with a middle line at 50 and a green and red fill on each side of it.
- Formula: PSY = 100 × (number of candles in the last n that closed above the previous close) ÷ n. The default n is 28.
- Settings on the platform: Period 28 only; the Colors and display tab sets the colour and style of the line, of the base line at 50 and of the fill.
- Reading: above 50 the buyers dominate and below 50 the sellers; levels at 35 and 65 mark oversold and overbought, which you draw yourself.
- Where: the Other list of the Chart analysis panel; search for Psychological.
- Tested: the 50 line gave 65 signals on 5-minute candles and won 52.4% (5-minute trades) and 47.7% (15-minute trades) of the decided trades; the return inside the 35 and 65 levels gave only 19 signals (55.6% and 42.1%). Break-even is 54.1% at an 85% payout, and a few days of one pair prove nothing.
How do you add the Psychological Line on IQ Option?
Set the chart
Choose the asset, the chart type and the candle size first: the indicator is calculated from the candles on the chart. The examples in this guide use 5-minute candles on EUR/USD. These steps use the web traderoom on a Practice balance, and the numbers in each screenshot match the numbers in the text. If you do not have an account yet, see how to register.
Step 1: Open Chart analysis
Click the indicators button (1), the wave icon in the chart toolbar at the bottom left of the chart. The Chart analysis panel opens with the tabs Indicators, Templates, Widgets and Scripts. Stay on Indicators.
Step 2: Find Psychological Line
Type “Psychological” in the Search for indicators box (1), or open the Other list, and click Psychological Line (2).
Step 3: Check the settings
The dialog has the tabs Basic settings (1), Colors and display and Script. The Period (2) opens at 28, the number of candles that are counted.
Step 4: Check the colours and click Apply
Open the Colors and display tab (1). The tab has three rows (2): Main line, with a colour box and a line-style box (grey-blue by default); Base line, with a checkbox, a colour box and a line-style box (the line at 50, pale by default); and Fill, with a checkbox and two colour boxes, one for the area above 50 (green by default) and one for the area below it (red by default). Click Apply (3).
Step 5: Read the panel
The panel under the price chart is titled Psychological Line (28) (1), with the period in brackets. It holds one grey-blue line (2) that moves in steps, a base line at 50, and a fill, green where the line is above 50 and red where it is below. The scale at the right edge is marked 60, 50 and 40.
How is the Psychological Line calculated?
On every candle the Quadcode source checks whether the close is higher than the close before and records 1 if it is, 0 if it is not. The PSY is the simple moving average of those ones and zeros over the Period (28), times 100. It can only take the values 0, 3.57, 7.14 and so on in steps of 100 ÷ 28, which is why the line moves in steps. It counts how many candles rose, not by how much: a rise of a tenth of a pip counts as much as a rise of ten pips.
| Part | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Period | 28 | Number of candles that are counted |
The sensitivity falls as the period grows, and a lower period gives more false alarms.
How do you read the Psychological Line?
The PSY is an oscillator from 0 to 100 that gives the direction of the market and the strength of the trend: the higher it rises, the stronger the uptrend. Above 50 the market is dominated by buyers and is bullish; below 50 the sellers dominate and it is bearish. The asset is believed to be oversold when the line drops below 35 and overbought when it rises above 65, and you can add horizontal lines at those two levels. The exact moment of a reversal is hard to catch, the PSY should not be used alone, and it can give false signals in noisy or low-volatility periods. Divergences between the line and the price are read like those of other oscillators.
What did it look like on 5-minute candles?
We replayed the library script on EUR/USD 5-minute candles recorded from the Practice traderoom: 1,093 candles from 29 September 2026 (01:55 UTC) to 2 October (20:55 UTC) and 241 from 4 October (21:00 UTC) to 5 October (17:00 UTC). With the default period the line has a value from the 28th candle of each stretch, 1,280 values in all.
- Range: from 14.3 to 75.0.
- Levels: at or above 65 on 33 candles (3%) and at or below 35 on 126 (10%); the price fell during the recording, so the line spent more time low than high.
- The 50 line: crossed 66 times, about once every 19 candles.
Two stills of the platform, window A (the Step 5 picture) and window B (not pictured), agree with the replay: at 133 points of the two windows, read off the panel, the line differed from the replay of the script by 0.3 percentage points on average (0.1 in window B). In window A, 29 September from 06:43 to 12:38 on the platform clock, the line starts at 50, climbs above 50 at 06:55 and reaches 64.3 (18 of the last 28 candles rose) at 08:00, stays above 50 until 10:15, then drops to 46.4 at 10:20, stays mostly under 50 and ends near 39 at 12:40; 39 of the 71 candles are above 50, 21 below and 11 exactly at 50. In window B, from 12:03 to 17:52, the line is under 50 until 16:00, with a low of 25.0 (7 of 28 candles rose) at 13:55, touches 50 at 16:05, is above it only from 16:20 to 16:30, with a high of 53.6, and ends near 46 at 17:50.
The 50 line and the 35 and 65 levels, tested
We wrote the two readings as exact rules on closed candles, with the option opened at the close of the signal candle. The 50 line: Higher on the candle where the PSY rises above 50, Lower where it falls below 50. The levels: Higher on the candle where the PSY rises back above 35 after being at or below it, Lower where it falls back below 65 after being at or above it. No expiry is given, so the box shows five minutes and fifteen minutes.
Tested on IQ Option: the Psychological Line, EUR/USD 5-minute candles of 29 September to 5 October 2026
| Asset and candles | EUR/USD binary (regular, not OTC): 1,334 five-minute candles (2026-09-29 01:55 to 2026-10-02 20:55 UTC and 2026-10-04 21:00 to 2026-10-05 17:00 UTC). The candles were recorded from IQ Option’s Practice traderoom. The replay places no orders; it only scores the rule on those closed candles, at an 85% payout. |
|---|---|
| Rule tested | The two readings on closed candles, the option opening at the close of the signal candle. The 50 line: Higher on the candle where the PSY rises above 50, Lower where it falls below 50. The levels: Higher on the candle where the PSY rises back above 35 after being at or below it, Lower where it falls back below 65 after being at or above it. No expiry is given, so the box shows 5 and 15 minutes on 5-minute candles. |
| Signals | Line 50 cross, period 28, 5-minute, 1 candle: 65 signals (28 Higher, 37 Lower) Return inside 35/65, period 28, 5-minute, 1 candle: 19 signals (15 Higher, 4 Lower) Line 50 cross, 5-minute, 3 candles: 65 signals (28 Higher, 37 Lower) Return inside 35/65, 5-minute, 3 candles: 19 signals (15 Higher, 4 Lower) |
| Outcomes | Line 50 cross, period 28, 5-minute, 1 candle: 33 won, 30 lost, 2 tied; 52.4% of the 63 decided trades won; net −$0.03 per $1 staked at 85% (+$0.00 at 91%) Return inside 35/65, period 28, 5-minute, 1 candle: 10 won, 8 lost, 1 tied; 55.6% of the 18 decided trades won; net +$0.03 per $1 staked at 85% (+$0.06 at 91%) Line 50 cross, 5-minute, 3 candles: 31 won, 34 lost, 0 tied; 47.7% of the 65 decided trades won; net −$0.12 per $1 staked at 85% (−$0.09 at 91%) Return inside 35/65, 5-minute, 3 candles: 8 won, 11 lost, 0 tied; 42.1% of the 19 decided trades won; net −$0.22 per $1 staked at 85% (−$0.20 at 91%) |
| Break-even | At an 85% payout a trade needs to win more than 54.1% of its decided trades to break even (1 ÷ 1.85); at 91%, more than 52.4% (1 ÷ 1.91). |
A replay is only a look back at candles recorded on the dates above: it placed no real orders, covers about four and a half days of one pair, and counts overlapping trades as if they were independent. A short test proves nothing about the future, and no profit and no win rate is promised here. IQ Option’s own blog on backtesting says that most strategies need dozens, and often hundreds, of trades before a result means anything.
The 50 line gave 65 signals, 28 Higher and 37 Lower: with a trade of one candle (5 minutes) 33 won and 30 lost (52.4% of the decided trades, with a 95% interval of 40% to 64%), and with three candles (15 minutes) 31 won and 34 lost (47.7%, interval 36% to 60%). The return inside the levels gave only 19 signals, 15 Higher and 4 Lower, and 10 won against 8 lost with a 5-minute trade (55.6%, interval 34% to 75%) and 8 against 11 with a 15-minute trade (42.1%, interval 23% to 64%). None of the four readings is clearly above the break-even rate of 54.1% at an 85% payout, and the two level results rest on too few signals to tell from chance.
Pros and Cons of the Psychological Line
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Counts rising candles only, so one huge candle cannot distort it. | It ignores the size of the moves: a tenth of a pip up counts like ten pips. |
| The line is calmer than most oscillators: it crossed 50 only every 19 candles. | The 35 and 65 levels were reached on 12% of the candles, so the level rule gave only 19 signals. |
| Simple to explain: the share of up closes. | It should not be used alone and can be noisy. |
Common mistakes
- Reading the PSY as the size of a trend. It counts candles, not pips.
- Expecting levels on the chart. The 35 and 65 levels are not on the panel: you have to draw them yourself; the panel shows only the 50 line.
- Treating 65 as a sell. It is hard to catch the exact moment of a reversal.
- Shortening the period without a test. A lower period gives more false alarms.
Related guides
- RSI on IQ Option and Intraday Momentum Index
- Classic and hidden divergences and overbought and oversold markets
- Leading and lagging indicators and three popular oscillators
- All indicator guides and all strategy guides
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is the Psychological Line?
A: An oscillator that shows the percentage of the last n candles that closed above the previous close. It is 50 when half of them rose.
Q: What settings does the Psychological Line have on IQ Option?
A: One setting, Period, set to 28 by default. The Colors and display tab has the colour and style of the line, the base line at 50 and the fill above and below it.
Q: What do 35 and 65 mean?
A: An asset is called oversold when the line drops below 35 and overbought when it rises above 65. They are not drawn by default.
Q: How do I trade the 50 line?
A: The usual rule buys when the line moves above 50 and sells when it stays below. The results of the rule are in the tested box.
Q: Why does the line move in steps?
A: Because it is a count out of 28 candles, in steps of 3.57 percentage points.
Q: Can I use the Psychological Line on binary options?
A: The platform draws it on any chart. Whether a rule works is something to test on the Practice balance with the expiry you plan to use.
